Forming Limit and Loading Path of Mg-Alloy Tube Bulging

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The paper researched formability ability of AZ31 Mg-alloy tube by hot pneumatic
bulging. FEM simulations were carried out to reveal the effect of internal pressure changing on bulging process and forming limit. Several loading paths with different pressure changing were used in the simulations. From the research, the original expansion ratio of diameter using a bilinear loading path, namely the internal pressure was increased linearly, is only 22%, and bursting occurs quickly. With a step-like loading path, namely the internal pressure is increased step by step, among
the steps, the pressure is kept constant, and the strain rate of bulging can be kept into a small range. Thus the deformation around the hoop direction is more even than the linear loading path, and than bursting can be postponed. During bulging, the inner pressure should be lowered with the increase of diameter to keep the strain rate in a small range around a constant value. Through optimization of loading path, the forming limit can be enhanced obviously so that the expansion ratio of diameter
can be increased to 25.1%.

Abstract: In order to investigating the effect of the combination of two technological parameters such as the initial bulging height and the initial bulging pressure on the sheet , the sheet hydroforming process was studied. Firstly, by using the method of numerical simulation, the sheet hydroforming process with and without the initial bulging were discussed; Secondly, the effect of both the initial bulging height and the initial bulging pressure which were based on the hydroforming with the initial bulging on the forming of the part was studied; Thirdly, the result of the simulation was verified in the experiment. It was found that when the initial bulging height is 3.75mm and the initial bulging pressure is 2MPa, the maximum thinning ratio of the sheet is 4.803% at the end of the sheet hydroforming process. According to the hydroforming process without the initial bulging factors, the maximum thinning ratio is 5.123%. It can be found that the initial bulging factors play a key role in the sheet hydroforming process. The maximum thinning ratio of the wall thickness can be decreased effectively by the appropriate initial bulging height and bulging pressure, and the forming limit can also be improved at the same time. The results of numerical simulation have a reasonable agreement with the experimental results.